Friday, January 19, 2007

More on Grey's

Another part of last night's episode just popped into my head. Meredith is talking to Christina. They know that George's father is going to die. And Meredith notes that her long-absent father is alive and well, upstairs with his second family, but that he means nothing to her. If he were to die, her life would not change. She wonders whether there is something wrong with her jealousy of George, who is about to lose the father he loves so much.

"Yes," says Christina.

At that point, we don't yet know that Christina lost her father long ago.

"Yes," says Christina, because she knows that for Meredith and her father, there is still the possibility of a future. And she is proven right, when Meredith later extracts her first tidbit of personal information about her father: that she inherited her capacity for snoring from him, and that there is a practical solution which may preserve her relationship with Derek. The father who means nothing to her helps her with the love of her life.

George's father at least got to meet the love of George's life, and to encourage George to put aside the baggage destroying that relationship. Christina's never even got to see her grow up.

Why Gannet? Why Search the Sea?

Gannets are enormous and sleek creamy-white seabirds, with black wingtips, yellow heads and necks, and startlingly outlined eyes. They nest on the rocky cliffs of the European and North American coasts of the North Atlantic and, once grown, spend their days sailing across the ocean. The acrobatics by which they make their living ~ steep climbs into the air and speedy plunges straight into the sea ~ are rivaled only by those of pelicans.
What better metaphor for a sweeping search of one's life choices and opportunities than a gannet extended above the waves, a regal and yet restless surveyor of the vast ocean surface? The gannet reminds us that life is an adventure in both beauty and profound unease, and that the sea itself is limitless in its textures and possibilities.